be alive until you are not @inkandrhythm - Tumblr Blog

One like nitpick thing that drives me crazy is when people call Blue Whales the largest whales or the largest living mammals or some shit like that

Because yes that is true. But when you frame it like that you are completely disregarding the absolutely batshit reality that Blue Whales are the largest animals that have ever existed on earth through the entire history of the planet and they are alive right now today

Today's joy: progress (hopefully), more reading

#personal joy #I don't *want* bad things for my coworkers #but I *do* want coworkers who actually... come to work and... do their jobs #and that is... not the case for 2 of the 3 atm

evilwizard

it’s pride month, minions. you know what that means

galactic-mayhem

do you want us to, like, cast gay spells my leige?

evilwizard

<|:^)

ororium-z

Happy Pride!

rootbeergoddess

Every pride, you must reblog this. No exceptions

thesaltofcarthage

I love that four different people on my feed scheduled this joyous person to reblog by 8am on June 1. I look forward to seeing this a dozen more times today.

shutyourmoustache

When my mother forgets a word, she is the queen of coming up with new words. Words that would take a third National Treasure movie to fully decipher. I was talking to her yesterday, and she said this: “You know the time for los jibbities is coming up. You must be so excited!” Oh, is it time for los jibbities already? I must have missed it on my calendar. Are we celebrating something? “Of course! We should all be celebrating, shouldn’t we?” OK, so los jibbities is a happy thing. It’s not like something is giving you the heebie-jeebies, which would have been my one and only guess. “Los heebie-jeebies? Now you’re making things up...and this is my show.” You’re right. The time for los jibbities is coming up. Is this a season? “Yes, the season for love. The season for pride.” OK, los jibbities. “Yeah, sound it out.” Los…jibbities. LGBTs! “Sí, mira cuz you’re gay!” “You couldn’t just say pride season? You couldn’t just… *laughs*

party-gilmore

HAPPY LOS JIBBITIES EVERYBODY!!!

greatmountainfloofsquatch

The time for Los Jibbities has arrived!

Today's joy: unexpected good conversations, reeeaaaallllyyyy good date night

#personal joy #funny how openness and authenticity with the right person just makes everything better

cursedpossums

unrestrained summer fun

cursedpossums

every year around late may, without fail, this post starts getting notes again . and my little wet raw chicken breast of a brain gets puzzled. because i forget that summer is , in fact. a yearly event

dailynarnia

is jake gyllenhaal gay??

why would you ask us, a narnia blog, this

helloitsbees

happy pride month to this post specifically

traumatized-tiefling

This is peak nerd internal monologue right here

wingkink

btw it's so fucking stupid you can be anxious physically in your body even after you've decided mentally you don't care. I'm supposed to be in charge here

catchymemes

my-dailydreams

#... no comment #re: why I don't socialize #see if I work full time AND take care of my physical body AND enrich my enclosure AND socialize?#I will have no me time #clearly the socializing has to go XD

Today's joy: help, reading

#personal joy #slept like shit #walked into way more work than I was expecting this morning #but with help got caught up by the end of the day #and got to spend the whole afternoon reading so yay

liberaljane

biglawbear

I finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in my life. With all of *vague gesture at everything* this going on.

I Am Not Okay

biglawbear

You have to understand. I watched the movies maybe once as a kid when they came out twenty years ago. I've somehow avoided learning like anything about these books my entire life. Literally everything about these books was a complete unknown and surprise to me. Totally blank slate going on. I barely even knew how it ended.

Holy shit.

biglawbear

Frodo didn't complete his task. Sam literally carried him up Mount Doom. And when he got to the end, he couldn't throw the Ring away.

But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.

So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.

And it broke him.

It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.

He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.

But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.

And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.

But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.

It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.

But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.

I'm not okay. Holy fuck you guys.

biglawbear

It's been a week and I'm still not over this, I'll never get over this.

Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.

The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.

This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.

And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.

I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.

Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.

And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.

And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.

How am I supposed to move on with my life after reading this?

three--rings

Certainly there are many messages within Lord of the Rings, but you have to think that Tolkien would have been happy that this message in particular was still being conveyed all these years later.

#gods I love that people are still discovering these books and *getting* them #I started reading The Hobbit/LotR at the ripe old age of 10 #and even though a lot of it went over my head #I think they saved my life in a way #good ol' Jirt #lotr